Speedier computing was their passion

PTO created its hall of fame in 1973 to acknowledge the creative spirit of America's top inventors. The Washington induction ceremony focused on the man who invented RAM and two inventors who made possible the early PC/AT computers and 286 processors.

Robert Dennard was working for IBM Corp. when he invented the first one-transistor dynamic memory cell. Today, dynamic RAM is found in nearly every computer.

Dennard said he was disappointed with bulky 1960s memory technology that used a complex six-transistor memory cell array to store each bit of data. Because of the memory problem, government and private-sector mainframes were large and slow. The per-sonal computer was nothing but a dream then, he said.

Dennard changed all that when he went home one evening and began working on a new type of memory that stored data using an electric charge on a capacitor. Dennard laughed when asked about his bosses' initial view of his invention.

"I had the basic idea for how we would create DRAM in my mind that evening," he said. "I called my boss and told him it would revolutionize the computer industry. He basically told me to calm down, take two aspirin and call him in the morning."

Dennard's invention soon became a staple in the computer diet. "Once I showed it to my bosses, they wanted to see if we could make it," he said. "I wanted to go ahead and get working on it and avoid all the bureaucratic processes."

DRAM developed quickly and in 1968 IBM and Dennard patented it. DRAM appeared in computers as early as 1970.

PTO also honored Mark Dean and Dennis Moeller, two IBM engineers in the 1980s. Dean, vice president of IBM's RS/6000 division, said computers in the early '80s were too slow. Dean and Dennis improved computer architecture to let PCs run high-performance software.

"We had a clock speed of about 2 MHz," he said. "When we worked with the machine we got it up to about 8 MHz, so that was a big jump for us." Dean and Moeller also created a new 16-bit processor that was twice as fast as a standard 8-bit machine.

Dean insisted he was just having fun. "We were playing with the computers back in the lab," he said. "We liked the faster computers because they were more fun to play games on."

Dean's bosses knew the processor enhancements would shift the computer revolution into high gear. IBM began selling faster end-user computers in 1984 with the introduction of the PC/AT.

As far as computers have come, Dean said there's still room for growth. "I know we could be a lot farther," he said. "If we did not have to make a business out of it, computers would be more advanced. There are lots of ideas invented all the time that you will never see because they can't be marketed."

Bruce Lehman, PTO commissioner, thanked the inventors for their contributions to the United States. He called the patent process the key to turning cutting-edge ideas into products.

Other inventors inducted into the hall of fame last month included the late Seymour Cray, the father of modern supercomputing; Robert Bower for his work with electronic circuits; and Richard Atchison for his invention of Carborundum, the world's hardest artificial substance.